Editorial: Businesses have the real stake in parking decision

Posted: Thursday, June 07, 2007

Because the merchants who've staked their claim in downtown Athens have made that area what it is - a vibrant mix of retail, food and entertainment venues - their voices should carry significant weight as the vexing issue of downtown parking is addressed by the Athens-Clarke County Commission.

A consultant looking into the issue of parking availability in downtown Athens has submitted a set of recommendations that call for increasing parking rates for both on-street and off-street parking, and increasing fines for an expired meter and for parking beyond a meter's time limit, in part as a means of freeing up the on-street parking that is at a premium at virtually any time of day or night in downtown Athens.

Briefly, the consultant is proposing that meter rates be increased from the current 25 cents per hour to 25 cents per half-hour; that the fine for an expired meter jump from the current $3 to $10 and the fine for parking beyond a meter's time limit be increased from $5 to $10; and that the cost of off-street parking administered by the Athens Downtown Development Authority, in the College Avenue parking deck and various off-street lots in the downtown area, be raised from the current $5 to $8 per day.

The recommendations are based, in part, on the premise that increased fines and fees would generate revenue to help pay for a new 350- to 550-space parking deck the county plans to build at North Lumpkin and West Washington streets as a long-term solution for the downtown parking problem.

But the increased fines would also carry the potential for opening up on-street parking, to at least some degree. Under the current fine structure, some motorists simply opt to pay a fine rather than pay strict attention to parking meter limits. Because the businesses that line downtown streets rely on the availability of parking, any strategy to keep downtown's on-street spaces turning over - as the proposed increase in fines would serve to do - deserves some serious consideration.

Beyond that, though, if business owners see fit to propose stricter sanctions - as one owner did in suggesting to the Banner-Herald for a Wednesday story that meter violations should carry a fine of $15 and that violators should have their vehicles towed or "booted" for even a first offense - those sanctions, too, deserve some serious consideration.

In short, this community's goal should be to keep downtown businesses viable, and it should be willing to listen to the people who own and operate those businesses when developing plans - such as a new approach to downtown parking - that have a direct bearing on that viability.